Got wood?

[Jstpssng]

Speaking of bears...We had a nuisance bear here last week (not a large mast crop locally this year)...besides tearing up bird feeders and BBQ grills etc...it was carrying stuff off including a gallon jug of Clorox (chewed several holes in the jug) as well as a spray bottle of Fantastic cleanser...among other things...

If I remember I will post some pics of the bleach jug tomorrow in the wildlife thread...

When I was doing property lines it wasn't uncommon for me to leave a gallon or two of paint on the line to use once I finished spotting and brushing. On a couple occasions I had bears get into it and wat the paint. A colleague who left his chainsaw in the woods came back to find that a bear had grabbed it and tossed it into a tree... the teeth marks in the saw were impressive. (Husky 346XP, the bear had good taste.)

 

[bindian]

God planted them???

Out of the mouth of babes.
Brandi

 

[Jstpssng]

Oh I agree with you, I'm just poking some fun about the bear. Managing a forest for yourself is anything you want it to be. You can remove invasive species. Remove mature trees for timber, firewood, or just to open areas up for smaller species to be able to mature. Or you can do nothing and let nature take it's course. It's all up the owner.

We have a 4 acre field that we planted with alternating rows of pines and mixed hardwoods back around 1990. There's only 1 species of pine. There's 8 species of oak, tulip poplar, cherry, walnut and a few more that I forget. At first glance, one would think it's a monoculture due to the pines and pine needles. However, once you start looking around, you notice the other species. There's turkeys, deer, rabbits, squirrels, etc... It was suggested when we had it planted to plant many different species as a hedge against diseases and pests, and avoid a monoculture.

Then there's a 6 acre patch that was corn field when we bought it. We let that go to see what happens. The back half of it immediately went to black cherry and very few other species seem to grow under it. The front half went to oaks. All of that on it's own without intervention.

We have another strip that's 10 acre of mixed forest. That's the healthiest section. The forester estimated 20,000 trees. That's 1,000 trees per acre. Several dozen species. Large to small. I cannot physically walk through most of it except for the deer paths or where I push through with the brush cutter.

What you say is typical... nature tends to revert back to it's wild state no matter how much we try to intervene. You really have to try hard to create a true monoculture... the most common for homeowners is on their lawns. Personally I'd rather have a few weeds rather than put that Scott's crap down every year, but that's just my opinion.
It would be interesting to visit Chernobyl, they say that has really gone back to the wild over the last 34 years.

 

[grsthegreat]

What you say is typical... nature tends to revert back to it's wild state no matter how much we try to intervene. You really have to try hard to create a true monoculture... the most common for homeowners is on their lawns. Personally I'd rather have a few weeds rather than put that Scott's crap down every year, but that's just my opinion.
It would be interesting to visit Chernobyl, they say that has really gone back to the wild over the last 34 years.

Well maybe.... but probably has 2 headed bears and trees that glow in the dark

 

[MossRoad]

What you say is typical... nature tends to revert back to it's wild state no matter how much we try to intervene. You really have to try hard to create a true monoculture... the most common for homeowners is on their lawns. Personally I'd rather have a few weeds rather than put that Scott's crap down every year, but that's just my opinion.
It would be interesting to visit Chernobyl, they say that has really gone back to the wild over the last 34 years.

Yeah. Lawns are a tricky thing. My father-in-law used to just POUR chemicals on his lawn every time he saw one weed or a bug and watered it twice a day. His lawn looked GREAT! However, to illustrate a point to him, I took a metal coffee can and used it like cookie cutter and pulled out a large plug of sod and soil. There was nothing in the dirt. No worms. No bugs. Shallow grass roots. It was basically a sterile growing medium. Over the years, we convinced him to use a mulching mower, water his grass longer, but less often, and cut way back on the fertilizers and chemicals. His lawn still looks great. It costs him a lot less money. The worms have slowly come back, etc...

As for Chernobyl, I hear the hunting is great there now at dawn and dusk because the animals glow in the dark.

 

[Jstpssng]

Here's a quote from this What’s going on in Chernobyl today? | World Economic Forum article about Chernobyl... I thought that it fit well with recent posts.

some scientists have come to two conclusions. First, animals and plants may be more resilient to radiation than we had originally thought. And second, the effects of the world’s worst nuclear disaster may be less damaging to the natural world than the continuing presence of people.

It makes me wonder, if people aren't part of the natural world does that make us supernatural?

When I was doing a stint with a landscaping firm years ago one of me coworkers was always bragging about his tomato plants. Everytime we mowed he would bring home the grass clippings. One day he came to work all crestfallen; it had been hot the day before and all of his plants died. He said that the grass clippings reeked of 2,4-D